Selling products to the DIY crowd

[RLitwin]

Has anyone started their own product line to sell to homeowners?
There are a few companies that will private label their products.
I'm looking into it.

pretreat and rinse for carpet
pet odor
pet stains
coffee
ink
hard surface cleaner
foam blocks
rakes

 

[alazo1]

Other then a simple spot remover and maybe some deo I wouldn't want to offer some of the stuff you mention.

They can barely get out a simple water spot let alone coffee or ink, that's when they should call a pro.

Albert

 

[Steve Toburen]

I understand your desire to "dig deeper in the customer's pocket", Rob. And in our company we used to carry for "after sale" to the customer:

General spotter
Groomers
Entrance mats
Vacuum cleaner bags
Sanitaire vacuums
Electrostatic furnace filters, etc, etc, etc!

But when we put our financial magnifying glass on the above picture and even more importantly focused on how both the customer and our employees viewed this stuff here is what we found out:

1. Both the profit margins AND the gross dollars just weren't there.

2. The technician was confused by all the options and many times was distracted away from our high profit services and did not offer them due to the plethora (I love this word) of other things he was supposed to push.

3. The customer felt overwhelmed by all the choices and could easily feel high pressured to buy in their own home.

Due to "all of the above" our stock in the truck didn't move, wound up getting all grimy and beat up and eventually we would throw it away. Finally we saw the light and changed our tactics:

1. We developed a FREE LIFETIME SPOTTER program where all of our customers got a free replacement bottle of spotter just for asking. Before we were selling the bottle for like five dollars with a wholesale cost of a buck. Then I woke up and realized that for a crummy four bucks (only sometimes when we sold it) we were throwing away a huge marketing opportunity that tied a customer to us for life. When I came to Jon-Don 12 years ago I shared this concept with them and to their credit they immediately saw what a great idea it was and came up with their Spot-Out program. (And the cost of the custom labeled FREE Lifetime Replacement spotter is still about a buck a bottle!) This one is a no-brainer.

2. We got rid of all the low-profit, distracting items above and focused on two extremely high profit SERVICES:

A) Scotchgard application. Single most profitable thing you can sell the customer. But we found techs had a limited ability to sell. So let's focus them (and the customer) on what made us the most money.

B) Our pre-paid, residential maintenance Always Clean service contract. This tied our customers to us forever and dramatically increased both their service frequency and the amount of money that we (painlessly) removed from their pocket.

Sorry to wax eloquent, Rob, but bottom line I strongly suggest to our SFS members that they avoid selling low profit stuff, give away Lifetime FREE Spotter (hopefully Spot-Out, which is a really good program if I do say so myself even though I don't get a penny out of it!) and focus their employee's efforts on SG and service contracts.

Steve Toburen
Director of Training
Jon-Don's Strategies for Success

PS For details on selling either of the two HIGH PROFIT items above just e-mail me at stoburen@homefrontsuccess.com Specify either "Upselling" which is how to sell protector in the home or "Always Clean" which gives an overview on how to set up a residential service contract program for carpet cleaning. (Sorry, but for the complete turnkey package ya gotta come to SFS!) Or I will e-mail you both Reports if you don't already have them. they are free for the asking. If you want the free accompanying DVD just include your mailing address.

 

[Kelly]

I personally love the do it yourselfers, they get screwed by the "professional" or they have been baited and switched around so many times they dont know weather to bite the hook or swim around in circles. I love to watch a rental machine leave the store, knowing its going out the door with the same professional grade chemicals the "real guys" use, and we are actually doing very well enlightening the public about the carpet cleaning "standards". You have to figure that some of the public simply arent going to call you, or, they already have called, and you sucked, or they wouldnt be down out our place trying to rent equipment in the first place. I usually ask why the equipment is being rented and there are mostly only two answers that I get. The first answer is that the people renting the equipment are actually carpet cleaners who do their work part time, and dont want to buy the equipment. The second answer I find most popular is, that the person renting the equipment have had their carpets cleaned twice. Third times a charm it seems when they figure they can do a piss poor job by themselves...just like the pros. We are expanding our rental "fleet" to actually accommodate the people who seem to suddenly think that with a little education and a little coaching they can be as good as you, and we never get complaints about the service the do it yourselfer give themselves, and it pays the bills. Yeah we also private label just for the consumer. ttfn

 

[Jimmy L]

Sell them Amway products that have name recognition .

Then you can sell them vacuums/laundry detergents and everything under the sun.

 

[John Buxton]

the people that rent a rug doctor, and spend all day trying to do it themselves are cheapskates, and only think they know what they're doing.

Then they blame the carpet cause it resoils so quick.

You get what you pay for.

 

[diamond brian]

Many of our customers have Stanley Steemer welcome mats.

Honestly, they are way too nice for me to suggest discarding--and, I don't sell welcome mats.

 

[RLitwin]

I wasn't planning on selling the products to my customers. I'm looking into setting up a web site to sell to the people who will not call the professionals.

 

[Kelly]

Set up the website. you wont be sorry